Why are some doors so difficult to close, even long after we've walked away?

In this personal essay, I reflect on two people I loved but was never truly with, and on what those connections taught me about love, projection, reciprocity and the difference between a bond and a relationship. Some people do not stay in our lives, yet they change us so deeply that we carry their impact for years.

This piece is about the futures we create in our imagination, the intensity we sometimes mistake for reality, and the moment we realise that meaning does not always lead to permanence. Letting go is not about pretending something did not matter. It is about recognising what it gave us, reclaiming our energy, and choosing the life that is actually here.

Perhaps the hardest doors to close are not the ones leading to our past, but the ones opening onto futures that only ever existed in our imagination.

What happens when life takes away the things you've quietly come to rely on? An unexpected journey to Japan became far more than a change of destination—it became an unexpected lesson in identity, attachment and presence. Travelling with the wrong suitcase, rebuilding a temporary wardrobe and arriving just before cherry blossom season forced me to question how much of my confidence was rooted within me, and how much I had unknowingly attached to familiar routines, possessions and expectations. Through reflections on Japanese aesthetics, the philosophy of mono no aware and the beauty of impermanence, this essay explores why the most meaningful journeys rarely teach us what we expect. Sometimes we don't return home with more things, but with fewer illusions. And perhaps the greatest freedom is discovering that beauty was never asking to be owned—only to be experienced while it is here.

Why do we always imagine a different life when we sleep somewhere new? There is something strangely liberating about hotel rooms. Perhaps it is the beauty of the interiors, the unfamiliar surroundings or the quiet rhythm of travelling. Or perhaps it is something much deeper. Unlike our homes, hotel rooms have no memory of us. They don't know our routines, our failures, our ambitions or the identities we've spent years building. For a brief moment, we exist without the constant reminders of who we have been, allowing us to experience ourselves in a way that feels unexpectedly honest. In this essay, I reflect on mornings in Capri, evenings in Paris and the subtle psychology of travel, exploring why unfamiliar places often inspire clarity, creativity and transformation. More than a story about hotels, this is a meditation on identity, presence and the surprising freedom that comes from discovering how little we truly need to feel like ourselves.